Stupid Question
by doomweasel
Summary: Edited May 5th. A oneshot alternative scenario to how Vexen met his end. Axel visits Vexen, who is wounded after his disasterous battle with Sora, with a few questions that need answering.


With a swirl of fire, Axel arrived in the library that took up the entire lowest level of Castle Oblivion right in front of Vexen, who sat at a huge oaken desk. He grinned wolfishly as Vexen winced and grabbed at the stray papers that had gotten caught up in the sudden updraft of hot air. He never got tired of that!

"How many times have I asked you to refrain from such unnecessary theatrics?" Vexen growled, extinguishing an errant flame that had caught hold of a piece of scrap paper with a silver stream of frost. "_Especially_ around my documents. Some of these are irreplaceable. Not that you would even know what that means."

"You need to lighten up," Axel replied airily. "Besides, books are a thing of the past – nothing but a memory. You really need to modernize. _Any_way…" He clapped his gloved hands together and rubbed them together in anticipation. "How was you little play date with Sora?"

_That_ struck a nerve. "Less than ideal, if you must know," Vexen snarled. Indeed, Axel noticed that the older man was even paler than normal, and a sheen of sweat glistened on his upper lip. He must have feigned death and escaped barely in time. "And no thanks to you, either. _Why_ do you continue to aid the boy?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Axel said, casting his gaze skyward in a look of sublime ignorance. "After all, I'm just a stupid underling."

Vexen's eyes narrowed angrily; Axel's constantly shifting persona was aggravating him even more than usual. "Indeed." If Vexen had planned on continuing, he was interrupted by a sudden spasm of coughing that lasted several seconds.

"You might want to take something for that."

Again, Vexen shot his subordinate an acid glare. "Why are you here?" he asked. "I know how much you dislike this place – though I fail to see why."

"Haven't you considered that I simply enjoy your company?" Axel answered, affecting a wounded expression.

"Please. Don't insult my intelligence."

"All right, all right. I admit it, I had an agenda." Picking up a leather-bound tome off of Vexen's desk, Axel started flipping through it silently until Vexen snatched it away from him. Axel sighed, shrugged, and clasped his hands behind his back. "There's a rather pressing question that's been bothering me for some time now, and I thought, with your vastly superior knowledge and wisdom, you could enlighten me."

Vexen leaned back in his chair, one eyebrow raised skeptically. "Is that so?" he asked, looking down his prominent nose at Axel.

"It is so."

"And what sort of question could trouble you so much that you come to _me_ for advice?"

Axel scratched his chin thoughtfully, choosing his words carefully before he spoke. "If you kill someone, but the person that you kill isn't technically _human_, is it still considered murder?"

Vexen blinked. Was this a joke? Was he serious? Why in the world would _Axel_, of all people, let himself be bothered by such a silly moral question? "Is this a practical question, or a purely hypothetical situation?"

"A little of one, a little of the other." Axel grinned as Vexen sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He got such a kick out of driving the old geezer up the wall.

He'd miss the guy. Kind of.

"I'm afraid I don't understand what the purpose of the question is," Vexen said.

"Oh come on," Axel scoffed. "It's a simple question."

Vexen scowled, but by now he'd given up on reprimanding Axel for his insubordination. "Well, depending on whether the question has real-life implications or is purely hypothetical in nature, one would approach the problem from different directions. One would have to consider what exactly the meaning of 'human' is, what 'murder' is defined as, et cetera. Never mind the more fundamental philosophical question of whether there exists such a thing as 'universal truths,' or whether morals are decided purely by the individual and therefore make murder perfectly acceptable, depending on one's viewpoint."

Throughout Vexen's lecture, Axel looked more and more bored until, by the end, he seemed about to melt into the floor. "You make this much to complicated," he remarked once Vexen was finished. "Let me ask an easier question – is it all right for a vegetarian to eat animal crackers?"

"Of course," Vexen scoffed. "That's a stupid question."

"Oh good." There was a flash of fire, a glint of metal, and Vexen fell to the floor in a heap. Axel twirled his wind and fire wheels absently. There was no blood, of course, since something that isn't alive can't bleed. "I was worried for a second there."


End file.
